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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Basin Street Blues

For a while last night, I watched the latest images of New Orleans with the television babble turned off. From the CD player came the 1963 Miles Davis recording of “Basin Street Blues,” its muted trumpet solo a long, slow memory of loss, Victor Feldman’s piano choruses laced with hope. The music provided more optimism that the city would revive than the combined banalities of all of the officials, preachers and celebrities the cable channels keep looping through their coverage. Then, it was sound up on the TV and back to the reality jolt that we all need if resolve to resurrect the city is to overcome fiscal, social and political obstacles. For ten minutes, though, Miles calmed the spirit, and Vic Feldman buoyed it, and that helped ease the ache of witnessing the anguish of a place I know and love.

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Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, … [MORE]

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